Board Suspends Bus Driver After Accident

A bus driver who was involved in an accident while taking Jupiter Middle School students home last month, was suspended without pay Wednesday by the School Board.

The board voted 6-0 with member Hugh MacMillian absent.

Ronda Green, 23, of West Palm Beach, faces termination at the board`s April 9 meeting.

Neither Green nor a representative appeared before the board.

Green, a district bus driver for two years, previously was suspended with pay on March 3 by schools Superintendent Tom Mills.

Mills, in a March 3 letter to Green, said, in part, ``According to police records, you were driving the school bus at excessive speeds while taking students home from school and you did not have proper control over the students who were riding the bus. Such actions on your part are sufficiently notorious to seriously impair your effectiveness as a school bus driver and also demonstrate a disregard by you for the safety of children.``

Green was driving west on Hood Road, west of Military trail in Palm Beach Gardens, taking 18 students home from school about 4 p.m., when she apparently turned too quickly into a housing complex and flipped the bus over on its side, according to police records.

Six students were slightly injured. They were taken to Jupiter Hospital, where they were treated and released, officials said.

Green was ticketed at the scene for careless driving, records show.

At the scene of the most recent accident last month, Green told police she was substituting for the regular bus driver and it was the first time she had driven the route.

Green said she turned abruptly into the housing complex, after a student on the bus told her it was one of the regular stops on the route.